Page 88 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

I chuckled, but I let my eyes close. For the first time in what felt like forever, I believed I had people behind me now who'd actually catch me if I fell.

And with Ira by my side and Eddie keeping watch, I let the darkness take me.

Webb

The TV blared from the corner of the room, and all of us were crowded around it in Jackson’s living room like we were watching the Super Bowl, except no one was cheering. Jesse, Marcus, Elijah, Remy, Matty, Malcolm, Benny, and I sat in tense silence, eyes locked on the screen as the camera zoomed in on a makeshift podium set up inside what looked like a marble-floored government building—likely the local courthouse.

There he was—Colin Maddox, standing on a pew like some kind of preacher delivering a sermon, though this was no Sunday morning. He was a man caught in the middle of a public relations inferno, trying to sell calm while everything burned behind his eyes. His tie was crooked, his hair tousled just enough to look effortless—though it was clearly calculated—and his smile was tight, forced, and cracking at the edges as he launched into full-scale damage control.

“I want to assure the public that the recent allegations are completely fabricated,” he said, palms out like he was begging for belief. “I have always conducted my business with integrity?—”

“Lying piece of shit,” Malcolm muttered.

“—and this attack on my character is clearly the work of someone with a personal vendetta.”

“I’ll show you vendetta,” Benny growled under his breath.

Then, as if the scene couldn’t get more surreal, a figure stormed into the shot from stage right.

Gladys moved like a woman possessed—eyes blazing, back straight, and mouth tight with fury. Her heels clacked sharply against the polished floor as she marched up to Maddox and, without so much as a word, grabbed him by the ear. Maddox yelped like a kid caught stealing cookies.

Every reporter in the room gasped, flashes erupting as she yanked him down off the pew like he weighed nothing, dragging him past the crowd and toward the front of the chamber where the county sheriff and three stunned deputies stood frozen, mouths open.

“You arrest him,” she ordered, her voice ringing through the microphones. “You arrest him right now for corruption, conspiracy, attempted murder, obstruction of justice, and being a disgrace to his family name.”

The sheriff blinked. “Ma’am?—”

“I raised this man!” Gladys barked. “And I’ve got more dirt on him than God. If you want your evidence, I’ll get it. I’ll giveyou names, payments, backdoor deals, hell—I’ll even walk you through the goddamn wire transfers.”

She dug into her handbag and yanked out her phone. “Start with this. My passcode's 1010—that’s Lara’s birthday. Now take it before I throw it at someone.”

We all stared at the screen in stunned silence. Gladys didn’t look the least bit concerned about cameras or optics. She was radiating a kind of fury that made everyone in the room, including the cops, take a step back.

“That woman,” Jesse said slowly, “is terrifying.”

“She’s a legend,” Malcolm corrected, grinning like a kid at Christmas. He was already tapping on his laptop. “All right, she wants data? I’m gonna get her everything Gabby posted, plus the rest of the garbage Maddox tried to bury.”

Benny leaned in. “What are you pulling?”

“Every buried contract, tax haven trail, offshore transfer, and scrubbed document I can find,” Malcolm replied. “I’ll package it for her to give to the sheriff. Neatly labeled, like a revenge gift basket.”

Matty and Remy slid into chairs on either side of him, already pulling up their own terminals.

“We’ll help,” Matty offered. “We’ve got backups of Gabby’s original files. Might be more she didn’t release yet.”

I should’ve felt triumphant. Hell, part of me did. We’d backed Maddox into a corner, and he was unraveling. Gladys had just gone full scorched earth in front of the press, and our tech crew was working in overdrive to make sure no one could sweep this under the rug again.

But something didn’t sit right. I leaned forward, my eyes narrowing on the live footage as I scanned every face in the background and every angle the camera offered. Someone was missing—and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it mattered more than we realized.

“I don’t see him.”

Jesse turned toward me. “Who?”

“Clayton Barris.” I stood slowly, my hand tightening into a fist. “He’s not there.”

There was no sign of him on the stage, not a glimpse of him in the crowd, and he wasn’t lingering in the back with the rest of Maddox’s usual goons. And that unsettled me more than anything else. Barris wasn’t the type to sit out a power play. If he wasn’t here, front and center, then it could only mean one thing—he was off somewhere else, planning something worse.

I stepped away from the TV, jaw clenched, with my phone already at my ear.

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